


Misunderstood

by Ibbyliv



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: But it's Enjolras doing it so it has fundamental issues, First Date, First Kiss, Flirting, Fluff, M/M, Misunderstandings, Obliviousness, Pining, Tumblr Prompt, Unnecessary pain, wingman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 09:57:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3406421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ibbyliv/pseuds/Ibbyliv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[From: Combeferre] Relax, Enjolras. Enjoy your date. Everything is going to be okay.<br/>[From: Enjolras] Thanks.<br/>[From: Enjolras] I know that hair is a social construct BUT WHAT DO I DO WHEN FRIZZY<br/>[From: Combeferre] Enjolras<br/>[From: Combeferre] Hair is not a social construct. <br/>[From: Enjolras] i’ m p ANIC Kin G</p><p>
  <em>Or the one where Enjolras tries to ask R out but R thinks he's there to be a wingman.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Misunderstood

**Author's Note:**

> For the lovely Tumblr anon who requested the ExR prompt: Enjolras tries to sneakily ask R out but R thinks he's there to be a wingman.  
> This fic is a result of a major writer's block and I've been struggling for days to get it done so all crappiness and cliches are mine and mine alone. Thank you for reading and bearing with me, ily all so much and I'm working on the other prompts!  
> Opinions and constructive criticism are always more than welcome!

For a guy who’s supposed to know all the best places in the city, this once he’s fuckedup big time. He honestly can’t recall how drunk he must have been when he firstwent there to remember it as nice. Probably the fact that he went there with Joly and Bossuet has something to do with it.

This café is a mess, with the hospital armchairs, the ancient suitcases and phones for the pretentious vintage touch, Che’s picture staring back at him from the door, next to that of Elvis with a nerf gun and the plastic heads of a pink stag and a green rhinoceros. There are little pots with knitted cactus on the tables that stand on mannequin legs covered in newspapers, pictures of 80s half naked models sitting on toilet seats, a collage of chancellor Merkel as a goose, and the occasional Van Gogh poster that has absolutely no place here. If Enjolras didn’t hate him before, now’s the right time to start doing so.

_He said “do you have time to talk about something tomorrow? You name the place.”_

_So he shouldn’t really blame him._

_On second thoughts, considering all the naked women on the ancient tapestry, next to Orthodox Christian pictures and the Anonymous mask, maybe he really fucking should._

He’s miserably nursing his beer when he hears the creaking of the door opposite his table. It’s Enjolras, bundled up and dishevelled from the wind, his nose and cheekbones all cold and rosy. He looks around the café and smiles awkwardly, waving with a gloved hand when he spots Grantaire, who dies a little on the inside as if it’s the first fricking time. Enjolras walks to his table, trying to make as little eye contact with the surrounding nudes as possible. He grabs a chair in front of a portrait of an astronaut Jack Russell and takes off his gloves, rubbing his hands.

“Uh, that’s a nice café – very… interesting choice!!” he mutters with an uncomfortable smile, finally giving the place a proper scan. Grantaire raises an incredulous eyebrow.

“Why are you being nice?” he asks suspiciously.

“I’m not, I really – uh,” he hesitantly raises his eyes at the Merkel collage, “like it?”

“Enjolras,” Grantaire sighs, “this place is a train wreck.”

The blond man fiddles with his gloves a bit, before setting them aside. “Fine,” he mutters eventually, staring at his hands in a most uncharacteristically nervous manner. “I’ve got something I need to ask you.”

The waitress comes to take his order and Grantaire just sits there, his stomach twitching uncomfortably without any particular reason, while Enjolras orders his double espresso, turning his eyes back to Grantaire after letting them wander at the picture of a pink donkey in garters in the back of the shop. The tone of his voice lowers. “It’s something really important… I’ve been gathering strength for a while, and I need to discuss it with you.”

“Yeeeah?” Grantaire grimaces, his mind suddenly going blank as Enjolras’ words, that don’t make much sense, turn on a mechanism that blocks every process of thought.

Enjolras folds and unfolds his hands, staring down at them and then up on the Edward Cullen Halloween mask hanging from the ceiling. He looks quite out of his depth, and Grantaire doesn’t blame him. He’s managed to make him all twisted on the inside, and he doesn’t even know what to expect. He swallows hard, his mouth dry, as Enjolras leans forward, his features sharpened with radiant conviction.  

“I was… thinking of going out on Saturday,” he all but whispers in a conspiratorial manner. “And I was wondering if you – if you care to join me?” He looks breathless by the end of his sentence, and Grantaire would freak out with the absurdity of the situation, but cannot because he’s still blank, his mind and all his thoughts, he’s living some surreal shit and he’s crawled outside of him, watching them as they pass before him.

“Why,” he hears his own voice coming out strangled, deciding to ignore the fact that  _Enjolras has decided to go out on a Saturday night_. “Are Combeferre and Courfeyrac busy?”

Enjolras looks almost guilty as he stares down on his hands, and bites his lip in a way that should be forgiven by law. “Combeferre and Courfeyrac – uh, how do I put it? They can’t exactly  _help me_  with what I need, you see?”

To say it feels like a punch in the guts as Grantaire gradually begins to understand would be an understatement. Still, he should be proud of his composure, maybe he should win an award, or something, for the worst fucking luck in the universe. An award of pity. Some sparkly golden booze, because this can’t be happening.

“If Courfeyrac can’t do this… job,” he clears his throat, “then _who _the hell can?”

Enjolras flutters his eyelashes like fucking Bambi and Grantaire knows for sure his world will never be the same. “Only you,” he says seriously, as if his life is depending on it. “Now, you’re the one who knows the best places. I mean, it would be great if there weren’t green rhinoceros, but I don’t really mind if that pleases you!” Grantaire opens his mouth to say a thing and shuts it just as speechless and appalled. “I mean, going out is your thing, right? I’d thought that’s what you’d want to do!”

Grantaire can’t utter a word, he’s just so shocked that it can’t possibly work. He’s just… awestruck, in every possible way. If this is a prank, then it’s the most distasteful one fate or the Muses or fucking Courfeyrac and Bossuet have ever played on him, and he honestly wishes them a bad pube shaving incident. He’s on the verge of tears, or shaking, or maybe he just needs another beer. Or eleven.

_Honestly, what kind of person, or mighty power, thought that this would be in any way okay?_

The thing is that Enjolras continues, now slightly more uncomfortable than before, as if Grantaire owes him shit and he’s bringing him in an undesired position. “I thought – ” he mutters, almost as if he’s _hurt, _for fuck’s sake, “I thought you’d want to do this for me.”

Grantaire is left there, staring at him in shock.  _Of course, Apollo. Of course I’d do anything for you. I’d polish your boots. I’d kiss your freaking feet. I’d draw my tacky sketches and carry your ridiculous signs, risking being beat up by the cops. I’d do anything to make you happy because I love you more than my fucking mind can process, even if that meant I’d feel like shit afterwards. But that? No, no person in the right minds, who doesn’t completely spit and cum on my wellbeing, would ever ask me to do that._

_Turns out that you do._

He clears his throat dully, as if there’s a chance to cough up the crippling sticky darkness in his chest. “Where would you like to go, Enjolras?”

He’s got his answer ready. “Somewhere where there won’t be cis-hetero judgment, you know, for queer people… _expressing _themselves?”

Despite his efforts, he finds himself quirking an eyebrow. “What you’re asking for is an LGBTQIA+ bar, even though I’d never have thought you’d want to hide from assholes.”

“I don’t!” Enjolras hurries to reply, almost spilling his coffee with the vivid gesture of his hands. “I just… I’m nervous enough as I am. I’d like to be comfortable, just for this one special time.” A hint of a smile flickers on his lips and maybe that’s the reason that makes it enough.

“Okay,” he sighs. “Alright. Of course. If… if that’s important for you…”

Enjolras’ face lights up and _God _does he look beautiful. “It’s really important for me, Grantaire, you can’t even imagine!” He takes a generous sip of his coffee that must have gone cold by now, judging by the pissy state of Grantaire’s beer he can’t stomach anymore if he doesn’t want to puke all over Enjolras’ shiny red leather jacket. “Just one more question… at the place we’ll go, what should I wear?”

By this point, Enjolras should have a vague idea of the fact that this has crossed a self-preservation limit for Grantaire, but Enjolras simply  _has_ to be the most oblivious person in the entire universe, who wouldn’t understand the feelings of others even if they did the Time Warp in front of him in full Rocky Horror attire. His insides ache as he digs out one of the most precious images he’d selfishly saved for himself and promised he’d never let anyone and anything defile it, the first day they were introduced to each other, the first time he heard him speak and address his name and died several time on the inside because he had seen the light and all this poetic shit that lingered before he got drunk and fucked everything up.

“You should wear that striped sweater with the red pants and the floral scarf,” he says quietly, his voice barely audible with weariness and defeat. “The ones you wore that day at the Musain.”

Enjolras’ face lights up. “You remember!”

_Fuck knows I do._

Everything aches inside him when Enjolras takes his hand in both his own – cold and smooth and full with angles – and says, absolutely glowing “Thank you R, I can’t believe this, thank you!”

He guesses that’s what he gets for getting an entire group to vote for him as the wingman of the year.

*

**[From: Enjolras] It’s done.**

**[From: Enjolras] I think I did it!!!!**

**[From: Courfeyrac] OMG what did he say????**

**[From: Courfeyrac] He xploded didn’t he**

**[From: Courfeyrac] Did we have an R-uption?**

**[From: Courfeyrac] HOW DID GRANTAIRE REACT!!!??!**

**[From: Enjolras] Uh**

**[From: Enjolras] I’m not sure?**

**[From: Enjolras] I mean**

**[From: Enjolras] He went very still**

**[From: Enjolras] If that means anything**

**[From: Courfeyrac] Like the llama incident?**

**[From: Enjolras] I don’t remember the llama incident.**

**[From: Enjolras] Like he was at the end of the Van Gogh Doctor Who episode.**

**[From: Courfeyrac] U broke R**

**[From: Courfeyrac] Fucksake of course u did**

**[From: Courfeyrac] You know we’ll have to pay Jehan and Eponine with blood**

**[From: Enjolras] I didn’t do anything!**

**[From: Enjolras] Do you think he doesn’t like me?**

**[From: Enjolras] Combeferre do you think he said yes out of pity????**

**[From: Combeferre] You’re flooding my inbox.**

** [From: Enjolras] He had been painting earlier.**

**[From: Combeferre] That’s because he’s an artist.**

**[From: Enjolras] You should have seen his hands.**

**[From: Combeferre] If you think so.**

**[From: Enjolras] They’re so beautiful.**

**[From: Enjolras] Do you think he’ll let me touch them?**

**[From: Enjolras] Ferre??**

**[From: Enjolras] What is the etiquette??????**

**[From: Combeferre] I’m under the mighty impression that R’s hands are under none of my division.**

**[From: Combeferre] Ask Courf.**

**[From: Courfeyrac] Better his hands than his dick, that’s what they say.**

**[From: Enjolras] Who says that?**

**[From: Courfeyrac] It’s an ancient proverb.**

Eponine has been pacing furiously up and down the room for the past twenty minutes, and there is very little Grantaire can actually do about it, since she has every right to be on the verge of punching some fucking sense into him.

“Who the fuck does he take you for?” she growls dangerously. “His obliging fuckboy?”

“Don’t talk for him that way,” he grunts, pressing his hands against his temple as if he has a headache. Maybe he has. “It’s… it’s not his fault.”

“Not his fault!” she roars, almost jumping at him on the couch and shaking the living shit out of him, “Whose fault is it, then, for asking you to be his fucking _wingman _while you’re practically dying for his stupid pretty face?”

He throws his head back and moans in a strangled voice. “He doesn’t _know _about my feelings, Ponine. And I… I thought he had no sex drive, for fuck’s sake, could you ever picture Apollo hitting the bars to get laid?”

She throws herself on the couch, pressing his cheeks between her hands. “You don’t have to go,” she says seriously, squishing his face in what he supposes resembles greatly of a crab’s butt. “Love yourself a bit.”

Yeah, right.  _Love thyself_. Bullshit. Why would you do that when you could love a deity of light instead, consuming and murderous, while you help him find the love of his life?

All that Grantaire can reply with is a series of unintelligible noises against Eponine’s hands.

**[From: Enjolras] WHAT DO I WEAR!!!**

**[From: Combeferre] Enjolras, I thought we agreed in no more texts for today unless it’s a case of emergency.**

**[From: Combeferre] I’ve got 148 in my Inbox.**

**[From: Enjolras] This is a great emergency!**

**[From: Enjolras] I DON’T LIKE MY CLOTHES!**

**[From: Combeferre] Do I need to quote your thoughts on fashion and capitalism from the time I bought my tweed jacket?**

**[From: Combeferre] You can’t really like your clothes when you’re never the one to buy them. **

**[From: Courfeyrac] Or when half of them have HOLES on them the size of my dick!**

**[From: Courfeyrac] Oh what would you do if you didn’t have Courfeyrac, the deity of shopping from the fae folk!**

**[From: Enjolras] Will we talk about my problem?**

**[From: Combeferre] Nope.**

**[From: Courfeyrac] Actually we are obliged to. Another fashion crime committed by Enjolras could mean the end of humanity.**

**[From: Courfeyrac] Did you wear the jeans I told u**

**[From: Enjolras] You may be my friend but you won’t dictate my life choices**

**[From: Courfeyrac] …**

**[From: Enjolras] …There was the ketchup incident**

**[From: Courfeyrac] BUT THEY’RE RED FOR MINE OWN SAKE**

**[From: Enjolras] I CAN’T GO ON MY FIRST DATE WITH A STAIN ON MY THIGH!!**

**[From: Enjolras] WHATEVER SHALL I DO**

**[From: Courfeyrac] Ok first of all calm the fuck down.**

**[From: Courfeyrac] Wear your leggings.**

**[From: Enjolras] My what.**

**[From: Courfeyrac] Your navy leggings Christ how hard is it to do this**

**[From: Enjolras] R has never seen me in leggings before**

**[From: Courfeyrac] EXACTLY MY POINT**

**[From: Enjolras] But he told me to wear my floral scarf**

**[From: Courfeyrac] He told you**

**[From: Courfeyrac] Why the fuck would he tell you what to wear at your first date?**

**[From: Enjolras] Because I asked him?**

**[From: Courfeyrac] God Enjolras just wear your fricking florals**

**[From: Enjolras] Is red a good color on me?**

**[From: Combeferre] It has been delightful but I think I’m done.**

**[From: Combeferre] Relax, Enjolras. Enjoy your date. Everything is going to be okay.**

**[From: Enjolras] Thanks.**

**[From: Enjolras] I know that hair is a social construct BUT WHAT DO I DO WHEN FRIZZY**

**[From: Combeferre] Enjolras**

**[From: Combeferre] Hair is not a social construct.**  

**[From: Enjolras] i’ m p ANIC Kin G**

*

He’s been gathering the strength for this the entire evening, unless spending-two-days-getting-drunk-out-of-his-fucking-mind counts as emotional preparation. He’s been through all the essential stages of denial, indignation and self-pity, both dreading and savoring the time that passes and brings him closer to their “tête-à-tête” with Enjolras in some obnoxious gay bar, trying to get laid but, woefully so, not together.

It was a sport he was good at, exceedingly so. He had a thing about chatting people up, introducing them to a group, starting to ramble with all sorts of jokes and references, for nothing and for everything, really, until people would get bored of trying to sober up and understand, so they’d abandon the horrors of appalling ugliness and jump The Attractive Friend instead. He was quite accomplished, managing to find Bahorel exquisite lays of all genders, stalking Cosette with Marius and even hitting on Joly together with Bossuet the day they both met the medical student. He had done it for Jehan and Eponine and they had done it for him several times, hell, even Courfeyrac had done it for him!

_Why couldn’t Enjolras just fucking ask Courfeyrac?_

Because Courfeyrac is his best friend, Courfeyrac is important – not that Enjolras has ever made Grantaire feel less than important, he has actually tried really hard, when all Grantaire was shit on his ideals and prove his faith in him wrong again and again. At least he would finally be able to be of some help, to do something for Enjolras and not let him down. He could bring a smile on his face, while at the same time making sure he would be ok, protecting him from anything and anyone that could happen, make sure no douchebag would mess with Enjolras. Who knows, maybe they could flirt for a while, just to pretend they were together…

_He’s _so.  _Fucked…_

They meet outside the bar, and they’re both shivering because it is cold as balls. The whole street is pounding with music, traffic lights dancing on the pavement. Enjolras looks happy to see him, that’s almost unmistakable, and before Grantaire can pull himself together, he pulls him into a somewhat unsteady hug. Grantaire has to try hug not to melt in his arms or scream really loudly because  _it’s Enjolras and it’s affection and it’s_  towards him  _so how the fucky could he just live with it?_

"Thank you for coming," Enjolras says warmly as if he’d suspected that Grantaire was on the verge of staying at home and drown himself down the sink. "Shall we… get inside?"

It’s all heated up, as is most time, and Grantaire doesn’t want to be there. The music is still floating around an alternative/indie/rock/pop spectrum, sometimes good some others really bad, and he knows the 80s and 90s are about to come later on, when people will be relatively drunk to forget that they’re gay  _and_  nostalgic. Not that there is something to forget when you’re gay. There’s just hella to forget when you’re a lil piece of trash.

To say that Enjolras looks out of his depth would be an understatement. Enjolras obviously doesn’t know where to put his body and his hands and where to look and how to ask for a drink (or even how to drink it) and being out of control is not a good color on him. Not that there is a _bad_  color for Enjolras, per se. Or pattern. Especially florals look good on him. And stripes. Enjolras can pull off florals and stripes quite well. For all Grantaire knows, he could pull the tricolor off and still be gorgeous.  _Only he’ll never be his. Ha ha, loser. It’s cool being a fucking masochist._

"Do you want a drink?" He hears himself asking. "Maybe it’d be good to loosen up a little."

Enjolras looks around hesitantly, then back at Grantaire, his eyes huge and glowing under pale eyelashes, rhythmically going blue and white in the lights of the bar. “Yes, please.”

They both drink their first, Grantaire downing it all at once. Enjolras looks quite determined for a moment there, and follows suit, only to choke and snort alcohol out his nose. Grantaire has to hit his back because Combeferre will knit a scarf with his insides if he lets his bestie choke himself on his watch, and eventually Enjolras stands up straight (only metaphorically) and all flushed up.

"Maybe we could, uh," Grantaire raises his voice in order to be heard over the music, "go dance?"

His halfhearted attempt is met with enthusiasm from Enjolras’ part and really, Grantaire should have expected it. He’s a downright terrible dancer. He steps on his foot several time, and fades out of their dancing space dizzily.  _Maybe he just hadn’t signed up for dancing with Grantaire._

_Neither had Grantaire. But that’s how you meet people in bars. _

_That, or barfing in the restrooms. _

They move like that to the music (or so they try) and Grantaire isn’t anywhere near drunk enough for their thighs to brush together and their shoulders to touch, and for Enjolras to glow in that way. He’s trying to chat him up keeping his distance for everyone else to know that they’re not together (as if) but Enjolras keeps moving closer in a way that leaves only one positive explanation: he wants to move all sexy to seduce other guys: if that is the case, Enjolras is more  experienced than they all ever assumed, and Grantaire has no reason to  be there.

He tries to chat him up, bringing up interests that he doesn’t share. He talks taxes and education and politics, embroidering it with the occasional Kafka reference, but Enjolras must really be drunk.

“Grantaire,” he says, looking confused, “what are you saying?”

He figures out that the sooner this ends the better for both of them, so he throws his radar behind Enjolras’ shoulder. He spots their guy. He’s got the whole lumberjack beard thing going on, and he’s wearing a  _The system fucks me every day_  t-shirt under a Combeferre cardigan. He’s perfect and presumably single and if that isn’t Enjolras’ style then he doesn’t know what the hell is. Grantaire wants to punch the living shit out of him.

“Look,” he gestures behind him as they stop dancing (after almost tripping over the waitress for the third time) and retreat to a stool, “this one’s cute.”

Enjolras’ face becomes almost scary as he turns around,  and then intimidatingly fast back to Grantaire. “Do… do you want to  _hit_  on him?” he asks incredulously, sounding almost offended.

“Uh – no,” Grantaire explains wearily because they really shouldn’t Enjolras drink again, “he’s for you.”

“He’s for…” the other man repeats blankly. “What? R, are you drunk?”

“No, you are…” but before he’s able to finish his sentence, Enjolras grabs his shoulders and Grantaire jolts up in surprise.

“Anyway, they’re kissing,” he says, pointing with his gaze at a couple that’s resting against the bar, swallowing  each other’s face off. “Shouldn’t we?”

Grantaire’s mind stops functioning for a while. He looks at the snogging couple. Then back at Enjolras’, whose features have suddenly softened in an alarmingly dreamy look. “What… what are you trying to say, Apollo?” he asks slowly and carefully.

“I’m just – I asked, I thought you’d want to!” Enjolras says fiercely, a flush spreading on his face, visible even in the neon lights of the bar. “I thought…” then suddenly he goes pale again, and Grantaire hasn’t the faintest of what is actually going on, “never mind, you don’t have to, of course you don’t!”

“What do you even want to  _do_?” Grantaire presses because his pulse is racing and he thinks he’ll start hyperventilating soon enough.

“I mean, I came here to _kiss you, _but…”

“What… what is your game!” Grantaire shouts, almost chokedly, placing his own hands on the other’s shoulders, “listen, you came here to kiss  _another guy_ , remember?”

“No –  _what_?” Enjolras pulls back in shock. “What is happening?”

“You’re drunk, that’s what’s happening,” Grantaire says hoarsely. “We should get you home…”

He’s really close now, sucking all the air from the room and Grantaire’s lungs. The lights are fading in and out of life almost hysterically, in synchronization with his crazy heartbeats. Enjolras looks serious and determined, and it’s almost breathtaking. “I thought you wanted this,” he says over the pounding music. “I thought you agreed to go out with me because you wanted to  _be with me_.”

“I…” Grantaire chokes. “I agreed to go out with you because I wanted to help you. You asked me to be your wingman.”

“My WHAT!” Enjolras shouts so loudly, that most people sitting on the stool turn to face them, despite the noise of the bar. Looking as if he doesn’t give a fuck, he brings his hands to his face, almost in horror. “I asked you on a _date, _Grantaire! A fucking date!”

The world stops moving, or maybe the bar does, Grantaire doesn’t really know. Everything slows down to an ineloquent buzz into his head, Enjolras’ beautiful figure fogging in waves because what did just happen, who spiked his drink,  _what_  –

“You mean… you asked me to go out… with_ you_?” he croaks in a high pitched voice.

“Well yeah, what else?” Enjolras grunts almost impatiently.

“But…  _why_?”

Enjolras’ face is as red as his pants, visible in the lighting that has gone dim with the next Smiths song. His voice, however, has not lost his force and confidence. “Because I have feelings for you,” he states, matter-of-factly. “And now, if that’s okay, I’d really like to kiss you because I’ve been waiting for fuck knows how long and my hands are kinda shaking.”

Something still alive in Grantaire makes him nod, his mouth all dry and his heart ready to combust into his ribcage. And on the next moment, Enjolras’ lips are sliding tentatively against his own that part to take him in, his hands running through his hair and his body dissolving in his arms.

“This guy was really cute though,” is the first word of sarcasm that Grantaire can utter breathlessly when they part to rest their foreheads together.

“You think so?” Enjolras frowns, and Grantaire honestly can’t tell to what degree he’s actually joking. “Because I could go punch his face.”

“Mhmm – I’ve got a better idea…” Grantaire can’t help but smile goofily against Enjolras’ pulse point. The world is a beautiful place. The bar is loud and smells of Enjolras and everything’s alive, so much that the light isn’t even blinding him anymore. Enjolras’ hand is playing with the hem of his shirt, and he leaves a shudder. Misunderstandings are a beautiful thing, because they punch you in the face and then they lift you up the sky. “Why don’t you kiss me instead?”

So Enjolras does.


End file.
